


Search

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, OT3, Past Riley/Sam, Post-CA2, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sam Feels, Sam's POV, Sexual Content, Snark, Threesome - M/M/M, past Peggy/Steve - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 08:52:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1463212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chapter 1: Post-CA:TWS, Sam and Steve search for the Winter Soldier. Sam tries to figure out their relationship as they do.</p><p>Chapter 2: During and after CA: Civil War, as Sam tries to figure out what to do now that Bucky is back in Steve's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ceares has done this fabulous, fabulous artwork for this fic: http://ceares.dreamwidth.org/48859.html and http://ceares.livejournal.com/206995.html

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ceares has done fabulous artwork for this fic - the cover is here, but there are 4 great pictures posted with Chapter 2!
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://s1239.photobucket.com/user/daria234/media/search9enhancewithtext_zps08mqgz11.png.html)  
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Please leave the artist a comment at http://ceares.dreamwidth.org/48859.html

It’s been a long time since you really believed in what (who) you were fighting for.

So you tell him that you’re with him, and you hope he knows how much you mean it.

On the first night, he sneaks out to steal you another set of wings, and you realize that he means it too.

\--

You barely get through train stations without being noticed: it’s on you to think of stealthy ways to act casual, since you’ve finally found someone even worse at lying than you are (and you’re sure not good). You get better at it, at the spy-type stuff, slowly, but surely, because Steve needs you to. 

He asks you your opinion and really listens. He tells you stories about the Howling Commandos (but never, ever about James Barnes). He asks you to pick restaurants, and you make sure he gets to try as many kinds of food as possible.

You never ask him if it’s a good idea to track down the man who almost destroyed all of them. You know that if Riley were out there, in whatever state, there’s no door you wouldn’t kick down to bring him home.

You have spent your time since your discharge trying to help war-torn minds build themselves back up. It’s a slow process. Worthwhile, necessary, yes – but very slow. Excruciating. And progress is always so small, so abstract, so unsure. But Steve has a chance to heal the biggest hole the war left in him, and the thought of recovering a person – something solid you could hold on to with your own two hands – is so pure, so full of simplicity and promise, that you feel better than you have in years.

\--

You help each other when things get dicey. HYDRA is still out there and when you can’t avoid cameras, you sometimes get attacked. You both know how to handle yourselves, and maybe Steve saves you more than the other way around, but you both do your part, and you know you’re stronger together.

Mostly. There are times when the wings are just too conspicuous, when you just aren’t able to bring them with you, and sometimes those times involve climbing mountains or hiking across tundra. You know then that you are just slowing him down.

He sticks with you anyway. He’s loyal, but you’re not sure that’s a good enough reason for you to stick around. You want to, but not if you’re hurting the mission.

When he makes fun of you for not being able to keep up, it’s fine. When he doesn’t, when he’s overly nice, you wonder if it’s because you’re not worth the company.

Then one day, while you’re breathing hard at the top of a mountain in the Urals, taking a rest that he doesn’t need, he looks over at you. “Look,” he says, “I know I’m not exactly objective here. Some people would think this whole thing is crazy.”

“I get it,” you say and he nods. He knows that you do. 

“Sam, if I start making stupid decisions, I’m counting on you to tell me.” He looks very earnest, very firm, and you can see again why he’s an easy man to follow.

“The second you act like an ass, you know I’ll tell you,” you answer. You try to appear bored with the conversation. 

Steve smiles. “Yeah. I figured.”

You remember then that he needs you for more than the wings, and the rest of the hike is just a little bit lighter.

\--

He tells you once, when you’re getting ready to sleep in your two-man tent (about as off the grid as you can get – camping in the woods). 

“You know what you asked me?”

“When?” you ask.

“When I came to the VA. You asked what makes me happy.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Still don’t have an answer.”

You realize then that you’re the only person Steve has talked to about what it’s like to be done with a war. You had assumed he was talking to Natasha or other SHIELD agents. 

You were wrong.

You swallow, nervous suddenly, even though you’ve talked through this with dozens of vets before. “It’s okay. It’s fine to take a while to find the answer. You just can’t stop believing that the answer is out there.”

Steve nods and slips silently into the sleeping bag next to yours. 

He says, “If it gets cold later tonight, we’ll need to attach our sleeping bags to use body heat so we don’t freeze.”

You know that he wouldn’t freeze from just a few degrees below zero, that he’s concerned that your normal body won’t be able to survive the night without him, but you nod. 

You’re a little bit worried about him, and even though he’s your commander now, you feel like it’s your job to protect him. You’re glad he plans on staying close.

\--

You track down leads all over the world, try not to get noticed as you pursue the thinnest of clues. 

HYDRA knows you’re travelling together, so in a city, you always get a room for one and then Steve sneaks in through the window. You’re both adults, so you share the bed, but you both usually end up pulling the sheets onto the floor and sleeping there.

You get used to the sound of his breathing at night, low and steady as you sleep, and the warmth of his body, solid, never more than an arm’s length away.

Sometimes he wakes up screaming for Bucky. Sometimes he’s screaming about something else, and you’re pretty sure that only some of it is about the war. You think back to how little is known about Steve’s childhood, but you know that with some people, it’s better to wait for answers than to ask for them.

You pat him on the shoulder, remind him of where he is. There is always a moment of confusion after a nightmare, but you wonder if the century makes the moment linger a little longer than it should.

Sometimes you’re the one who wakes up screaming. 

Sobbing.

Then an arm snakes around your waist. You try to move it, but it’s like steel. He pulls you toward him, and suddenly you’re crying on his shoulder, no shame, no comment. Just a warm body bringing you back to the present, out of the dreams of your past. 

You wonder how you ever managed to do this without him.

\--

It’s easy to see beyond the legend, to see Steve as a smartass, a pain, an all-too-human hero instead of a poster. 

But in the most embarrassing moment of your life, it’s hard not to realize that you’ve just humiliated yourself in front of Captain America.

“Sam,” his voice says softly one night. You wake up slowly and smile at him. You stare at his lips. 

You realize suddenly that you’ve draped yourself around his body, your leg wrapped around his, your erection pressing into his thigh.

You wonder if you’ve been sleep-humping Captain America. 

It is not a good moment.

“Sorry,” you say quickly, and pull away, turning around to face the other direction. 

“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s just natural,” Steve says. You figure that’s how guys explained it in his day.

“Didn’t mean to wake you up,” you say, willing your body to calm down, or at least trying. You still can’t look at him.

“I wasn’t upset. I just noticed that you were, you know…” Steve says.

“Sorry. It’s just… been a long time.” You hope that you can stop talking about this now.

Steve pauses then. “I could help you out.” His voice sounds dry, strained.

You turn around and look at him. Even in the dark, you can see the fear in his eyes. 

You realize he is terrified to ask you this, he is terrified that by being human, just for a moment, he has destroyed your childhood image of Captain America forever.

You think that he must be used to this reaction from people.

“You don’t mind?” you say casually. You can play the game too: two guys, helping each other out, just what guys do, etc.

You feel a hand on your dick, strong but careful, moving slowly, teasing at first, then faster, firmer, twisting lightly, and then Steve’s thumb starts to do some pretty magical things.

This is definitely not Captain America’s first handjob.

You finish and Steve keeps his hand on you for a moment, then moves it away and lies flat. 

“Thanks,” you say, since apparently you two are still just dudes helping each other out. “Do you want me to…”

He hesitates, then says, “No. Raincheck.”

Apparently, you owe Captain America a raincheck for one excellent but impersonal orgasm.

“Okay,” you say, and then you turn back around. You try to think of something better to say, but your body is tired, sated, and soon you are asleep.

\--

Steve gives you three handjobs before you work up the courage to kiss him.

It’s long and heated and slow, your tongue working its way around his mouth, but you get him to give a little moan and you have to will yourself not to stop and just grin.

You ask to do more than handjobs, and he says yes. But when you start to unzip him, he admits that he hasn’t done that since the 1940’s. 

It was never that he needed to pretend that he wasn't really into men. It was that he needed to pretend this wasn't painfully new (old) to him.

You stop. The last thing you want to do is pressure him.

But he wants to. He insists that he wants to.

So you go slow. Easy.

Soon, you’re behind him, lying side by side in the too-soft bed, as his body tightens around your dick, as you press into him, slow and steady. His back is drenched in his sweat, and in all your battles you’ve never seen him sweat like that, and you kiss his shoulder, taste the moist salt of his skin. Your hand reaches around to grip Steve’s dick, and you work him up, teasing him until he begs for it.

The clench of his body as he orgasms almost makes you lose your mind.

It’s perfect.

The two of you lie in each other’s arms for a long time. He catches his breath long before you do.

He is quiet, and right before you are about to ask if he’s okay, he says to you: “We are definitely making a habit of that.”

You smile at him, peel a strand of sweat-slick hair away from his temple. “Hell, yes, we are,” you tell him, and his smile is almost angelic.

\--

You are by his side, every day, every night, and nothing has ever felt more right.

But you’re still you and he’s still him, and there are vast swaths of yourselves that you still don’t share with each other.

It is a long time before you ask him about Bucky.

He tells you about growing up together. He tells you what a hero Bucky was, even in Brooklyn. He tells you how much everyone loved Bucky, how charming he was, how smart. What a good sniper, a good soldier, a good friend. All the times Bucky had saved Steve’s life.

He is so much more open than you expected him to be that you almost don’t want to complain. But he has told you so much about how much Bucky meant to him, without ever answering what you really want to know.

You ask him directly if Bucky was his lover.

He pauses, then says, “It was much more than just that.”

You nod and don’t say anything else. You shift the conversation back to the latest lead, and you do your duty and give your best analysis of the situation.

That night, Steve wraps his arm around your waist and you let him. But you pretend to be tired and uninterested in anything more than sleep.

You stay awake all night thinking about the fact that your mission is to track down the love of Steve’s life.

Your mission is to find your replacement.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During and after Civil War, Sam hates Bucky (except that he doesn't, and he sees that Bucky and Steve are perfect for each other).
> 
> Basically angst and jealousy, followed by ot3 solution, with a focus on Sam and Bucky getting to know each other.
> 
> Warnings for very brief mention of vaguely suicidal thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ceares has done fabulous artwork for this fic:
> 
> [](http://s1239.photobucket.com/user/daria234/media/lifes%20a%20beach%20find1_zpspjtotojq.png.html)  
> 
> 
>    
> [](http://s3.photobucket.com/user/ceares/media/Search%203photo_zpskrkrzngr.png.html)  
>  
> 
> Please leave the artist a comment at http://ceares.dreamwidth.org/48859.html

You learn to be an Avenger, and it’s hard in the good way.

Steve doesn’t give you special treatment, not in training or missions. He’s not harder on you either, and you do your best to act like you don’t feel like you have something to prove, like it wouldn’t destroy you if Steve ever regretted bringing you in.

Sometimes you wonder what happened to you, if maybe, despite your best efforts, you’ve put him back on that Captain America pedestal that Steve never really wanted to be on. Because this level of adulation, it can’t be healthy. It may not feel like hero worship, but it’s something, and it’s desperate, and it’s taking over. Fast. So you wonder.

Then one day, as you’re both lying in bed, sweating still, Steve turns back to you and out of nowhere he says, “You know I’d be lost. If you weren’t here…. You know that, right?”

He looks like a single word from you might break him.

“You’re never going to be lost,” you promise, and you hold him tight.

This might be a clusterfuck headed nowhere good, but at least you’re in it together.

\--

Lagos happens. Brock fucking Rumlow kills a bunch of civilians. And Secretary Ross, who you always thought was a typical DC political prick with absolutely no clue, has an opinion on the matter.

Steve blames himself for getting distracted when Rumlow mentioned Bucky. But he knows that making a mistake doesn’t mean you stop fighting. He’s been in a war before, a war on a larger scale than anyone you know has seen, and even with the way he has to take the whole world on his shoulders, Steve knows you have to learn to move with the weight.

Tony, who has seen a lot of battle but never actually been in a war (Tony, who visibly flinches when someone says the word ‘Ultron’), thinks they need to play ball, thinks that giving up the reins will somehow make it more bearable when other people pay the price for the team’s mistakes. Rhodey, the high-ranking officer, who could probably be a senator if he weren’t far too honest and also Tony Stark’s friend, still believes in being part of a chain of command, still trusts in authority. Natasha just wants the team to make it through this crisis, and Vision takes Tony’s side as usual. Wanda doesn’t speak to anyone but Steve and Vision, but you can tell that she’s not coping, that her guilt is at war with her sense that she must defend herself from a world that (not for the first time) is trying to wipe her out.

Peggy goes to a better place, and you stick as close as you can by Steve’s side as he will let you.

Steve’s not breaking on your watch.

You think for a minute about Peggy, about her and Bucky and Steve. About if it’s possible to love more than one person with all of your heart.

If anyone could, Steve could.

After that, it’s a whirlwind. There’s a bomb at the Accords, a picture that Steve refuses to believe, a lead from Sharon, an apartment in Bucharest, a man dressed as a cat with no sense of humor, and you are so completely done with this shit you can’t even pretend to think that any of this is okay.

But Bucky is alive and right in front of you. And you and Steve are criminals.

Then the power goes out, and Bucky becomes what he was in DC. Steve chases him of course, holds on so tight to Bucky that he almost lets a helicopter tear his body in half.

Then they are gone.

\--

Steve calls you and only you. Not Natasha, not anyone else. You know that he trusts you more than he trusts the others, and you’re a little bit proud of that.

You try to be objective, but you’re skeptical. You want to make sure Steve doesn’t let his affection cloud his judgment.

Bucky says he remembers and Steve’s face melts into a smile, and you think in that second that Bucky just made Steve whole in a way that you never could.

But there’s no time for that. The guy who set Bucky off has a bigger plan and he needs to be stopped.

You steal a car so you can head to a meet with Sharon. Bucky, who is always frowning, looks at you and you feel like he reads everything.

“Why’d you steal a car like this?” he gripes.

“Mr. Metal Arm wants to tell me how to be inconspicuous. Okay,” you say, as sarcastic as you can manage to sound.

“It’s tiny,” he adds, and your jaw clenches.

Steve, who’s in mission mode, says, “That’s because I’m driving around a couple of clowns.”

You all get in the car then, Bucky heading right for the back seat. You assume it’s because he can’t trust you to be behind him.

\--

You stop for gas and snacks, and they wait in the car because you are by far the least recognizable among them. You bring back a big bag of food, since Steve eats like a horse so you figure Bucky does too.

Bucky skips the beef jerky and doughnuts and chips and goes right for an apple, taking a second to pause, to turn it over in his hand and gaze at it before taking a bite, almost like he just likes the way the apple looks.

You wonder for a second what he ate for all those decades he spent as a HYDRA weapon. Then you think about spending 70 years without a damn apple, just metal and blade and blood, and you feel sick to your stomach.

Steve says “Thanks, Sam,” and grabs a bag of cookies and some salami and crackers as he starts to drive. You don’t have an appetite, but Steve looks at you, confused, and says, “Eat something.” You know he’s saying it as your officer, not just your friend, so you shove down a cheese sandwich and a soda so you’re not hungry in battle.

\--

You stop again so Steve can take a piss in the woods, away from any gas station surveillance cameras, and you and Bucky are alone in the car.

You don’t feel like making small talk. You try really hard to just say nothing.

“You could have made a phone call a couple years ago. Seeing as you remember,” you say, a little bitterly. “You must have known we were looking.”

“You know why I did that,” he says calmly.

You look in the car mirror back at his face. He’s staring at you.

He had told Steve that he had stayed away because he was afraid of being used as a weapon again.

But now you see, clear as day, that he thinks Steve is better off without him.

A small, petty part of you wants to lie, wants to tell him that he’s right.

You say, “You did that because you’re a pain in the ass.”

Bucky almost cracks a grin but then manages to stop himself.

\--

It’s bad, at the airstrip. Part of you wonders if Tony and Steve should just have a good talk – hell, you suspect that Tony is doing at least half of this because he thinks he’s protecting Steve, and Steve’s in no position to judge overprotectiveness. But talking doesn’t seem like an option, and if there’s going to be a fight, you’re going to make sure you’re on the right side of it, and you still believe in Steve’s moral compass – and your own.

They all pull their punches a little (except for T’Challa), but to you, it’s most obvious with Bucky. Bucky doesn’t fight like the Winter Soldier did, not even remotely. The Winter Soldier was a beast, a weapon who threw human bodies around the way kids throw wads of paper. 

Bucky, he fights like Steve. Perfect control. He never hits his hardest, even against the prince (now king) who’s out for blood. He uses his power precisely, and you’ve seen Steve fight long enough to know what he’s doing; he’s taking care of the people he’s smacking around, even when it seems like he’s not.

He fights like Steve in other ways too. When he sees you’re about to take a hit, he runs as fast as he can so he can absorb the hit with his own body. If you fall, he holds on tight and turns mid-air to make sure you land on him. You remember in that instant all the times Steve has done this to you, made his body a shield instead of a sword, absorbing the pain so you don’t have to, and it’s almost unbelievable that there’s another man who wields that kind of power just like that.

You’re sure that Bucky knows you’d love to take Steve away from him, knows you resent him deep in your bones, even though he’s only known you less than a day. But he would lay down his life to keep you safe, that much you can tell for sure. And you know in that moment that Steve was right to defend him, that protecting Bucky is every bit as noble a cause as protecting Steve. And it hurts a little, that you have to admit it to yourself, but you know it’s true.

Bucky is a not the Winter Soldier. Bucky is a good man.

He still has a big mouth, though.

(Though, honestly, that’s just one more thing he has in common with Steve.)

Eventually, you see that Steve and Bucky need to make a run for it if they have a chance at stopping Zemo. The rest of you stay to provide cover.

You feel pretty good about dodging Vision’s shot at you for a fraction of a second.

Then Rhodey falls and you race toward him knowing you’ll be too damn late.

Too damn late again. Too damn late _always_.

Falling and falling and landing with a thud sharp as glass.

Tony shoots you unconscious and you dream of Riley again and again and again.

\--

You wake up in the Raft, as the guards call it.

Wanda and Clint and Scott are there too. A guard laughs at Wanda, mocking her for not being able to move, and you manage to get in a good punch at him.

Your face pays for it. Scott yells at the guards, which does nothing. Clint seems to have been in this situation before, presumably with a foreign government, so he tells everyone to cool down and wait it out.

Wanda seems better when Clint talks to her, at least. You don’t know what to say to any of them, though. Especially Scott, who you basically recruited, but he doesn’t seem resentful – worried, probably thinking about his kid, of how he hard he fought to avoid going back to prison – but not resentful of you, somehow. Though he seems to resent Clint just a little, when Scott suggests they pass the time by playing “I Spy” and Clint says, “Just shut the fuck up, man.”

You know that Steve and Bucky must have gotten away because they keep interrogating all of you to find out where he is.

Scott tells the guards that no one knows where Steve’s going, that they didn’t have time to brief everyone on the location.

This is mostly true. They start to beat on Scott for answers, and you tell them that you’re the only one who knows and you’re not talking.

Clint stares at you like he thinks you’re an idiot. You can tell he thinks you should all share the beatings so you can spread them out, tire out the guards, and so on. You like Clint, you really do, but fucking spies. So fucking pragmatic about everything. So Clint says that he knows too, and Scott says the same. Wanda does too, but the guards won’t interrogate her; she’s kept without human contact, just in case human error affects the tech that’s keeping her powers in check. But the guards… they’re not pleased with you, and it shows.

When they’re not hitting you, you ask the guards about Rhodey but no one will tell you anything.

So when Tony Stark shows up, you don’t even know if Rhodey is alive. But you have to ask, and you know the news isn’t great, you know that his prognosis can’t possibly be great, but just the fact that there’s hope that Rhodey could survive makes it feel like you can breathe again, your bruised ribs notwithstanding.

Tony asks you to trust him, and you see a chance to make sure Steve and Bucky get out of this alive, to give the team one last chance to be a team again, and you decide to say yes.

The next day, the guards gloat that Steve and Bucky almost killed Tony Stark and now they’re on the run and wanted by almost every government on Earth. You don’t believe them until they show you a phone with news headlines, complete with pictures of a bruised up Tony. You know that there’s an explanation. They hint that they’re going to get you to tell them where Steve is hiding, but this time, you actually don’t know.

Scott manages to pickpocket the guard’s phone to read the article – there’s no Internet service, so he can’t call out or read anything else, but he tells you that everyone knows Bucky was framed for the Accords bombing. King T’Challa brought Zemo into custody, telling the world that Zemo’s plan was revenge for Sokovia, a plot all along to split up the Avengers. Steve and Bucky were still wanted criminals, though – Bucky for what happened in DC and Steve for helping him run.

You wonder what the hell happened with Tony, but the article is short on those details. You figure that Steve will need to lie low for a while, will need to help Bucky find a place to settle and hide. You know it’ll be a few months in the Raft, at least. Maybe years. You’re on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and you don’t think even Steve will have an easy time finding you, even when he does get the chance to look.

You wonder if your family has been told you are in custody and when they will start to worry about why you haven’t called. But you know you will make it through, and so will Clint and Scott and Wanda. You’ll all stick together. You have to.

A few days later, you hear a series of thuds and you look out the tiny slot in your door to see Steve smiling at you.

You feel a flutter in your chest. You tell yourself that it’s relief and not because you feel like a teenager in love.

You smile back.

\--

 

Clint and Scott go back to their families, and Wanda decides to stay with Clint and Laura for a while. You and Steve and Bucky all take a trip to Wakanda, because T’Challa is considerably cooler than the last time you saw him and has offered all of you refuge.

When you’re all safe, you let Bucky and Steve have some time alone, and tell yourself that it’s good to be the bigger man and be understanding of all they’ve gone through, and you keep telling yourself that as you imagine their loving, joyous reunion. But in just a few minutes, Steve walks back out, looking ten times as broken-hearted as you.

“Bucky… he wants to be put under again. Until they find a cure.” Steve looks at you, and you can see the strain of trying to be strong, to pretend this isn’t breaking him in two.

You know you should feel relief. You should feel grateful that Steve will be all yours again.

You don’t. You feel panic. Rage. Because this isn’t right. After everything that’s happened, everything Steve has been through, you know deep down that it’s not right that Steve would lose Bucky _again_.

And with what Bucky’s been through, it’s not right for him to lose Steve either. 

You feel like you would do anything to save Steve from this. And, to you surprise, you feel just as strongly about saving Bucky from this.

“We can talk to him,” you tell Steve, trying to be reassuring.

“I … I tried. But he … wants this.” Steve is speaking so quietly now, and you can’t help but reach out, hold him up by the shoulders as if he were capable of collapsing like a normal man. “I can’t be selfish, Sam. I have no right to insist that he stays. He’s done…” Steve is barely controlling his breathing, his tears. “He’s done so much for me, Sam. I can’t ask him to do more. Not when he doesn’t want to.”

You nod. You look at Steve and remember that more than anything, Steve believes in choice, in freedom from those who would impose what they want, and he won’t ever show love by trying to control another person’s will. 

You hold him in your arms as tight as you can, wishing you were strong enough to squeeze even tighter, and you feel him shaking in your arms, can feel the tears wet the cloth of your shirt, but you don’t hear him make a sound.

\--

Before you leave Wakanda, you get a private moment with the king to talk about something. He understands and tells you that you are welcome in Wakanda any time.

You and Steve leave and go visit Wanda and Clint and Laura and their kids for a couple days. The farm is still a secret. It’s nice to see them but you know that Steve needs to see with his own eyes that he hasn’t ruined their lives. Not that Wanda or Clint would complain about ruining their lives for Steve – it seems to be a common thread, and you can’t even object because you understand.

You visit Scott and discover that with the Antman suit, Scott can easily visit his daughter without getting caught, and both you and Steve feel better.

You leave Scott and his friends, who give Scott every bit as much shit as you give Steve and maybe more, and you head out on the road again.

He looks over at you and says, “Where to?”

You don’t know, but you know he needs an answer – you know that putting Bucky back on ice might have been the hardest thing he’s had to do, even harder than fighting him when he was the Winter Soldier – so you tell him you really need a week of cocktails on a beach to sort things out, and he grins.

\--

You stay at a hole in the wall rental, a completely dilapidated cabin on a gorgeous beach, and you stay for a lot longer than a week.

Internet use is sparse, just in case, but there’s a little bookstore a couple mile's walk away, into the little nearby town, and Steve devours a couple books a day. You read on the beach too, in between watching sunrises and sunsets and napping in the hot afternoons. You go to the market to buy food, and over a tiny electric burner you try to teach Steve how to cook. He’s a slow learner.

You don’t want Steve to be recognized when he goes to the bookstore or the beach chairs so he dyes his hair purple and grows a beard and wears sunglasses. Steve asks you “Do I look like a ‘hipster’ now?”, his tone suggesting that he only has the vaguest sense of what a hipster is, and you tell him “Not quite.”

You make love on the beach at three in the morning when the other tourists are sleeping or too drunk to care. Sand gets everywhere, you develop a only semi-irrational fear of being stung on your junk by scorpions, and at the back of your mind you still wonders if he wishes you were Bucky. But the ocean smells of crisp salt, the moonlight streams across your bodies as they move, warm, snug, together, and you wouldn’t trade these moments for anything.

Often, in the morning, you make love again, drifting into bliss and then sweet sweaty aftermath and then back into sleep again.

A month later, you tell him what you've been wanting to tell him.

“I know you’re always going to need a mission. Something to fight for.”

He starts to object but you hold up a hand.

“Hear me out,” you continue. “I’m starting to wonder if I’m the same damn way. So it’s okay. But I need to take care of something personal. It’ll take maybe a couple weeks. Will you wait for me?”

Steve’s forehead creases and you can see how badly he wants to ask you what you’re doing. You can see he doesn’t suspect a thing, though, and you know Steve feels like you’ve given up everything for him (he doesn’t have a clue that what you’ve given up doesn’t hold a candle to what you’ve gotten; he doesn’t have a clue that all the people who sacrifice for Steve feel the same way).

“Of course I’ll wait for you, Sam,” he says. He pulls you in for a kiss, and it’s a little harder, a little more possessive, than usual. You part and he looks in your eyes, searching for something.

“I’ll come back,” you promise. “Just try not to start any wars without me. I know how you can get when there’s no one here to baby-sit you.”

“You’re a dick,” Steve says with the sweetest smile imaginable.

\--

You leave your beach retreat and it takes a couple days to find under-the-radar passage to Wakanda.

T’Challa meets with you again and seems to think you have a point, thankfully. Though he’s busy, he has lunch with you to chat. You can tell he’s trying to gauge you, to determine if he should trust you and your intentions with regard to the man he has vowed as king to keep safe.

You decide to be up front and tell him that you’re in love with Steve. That you would do anything to help him.

He pauses for a second, then nods. You can tell he’s on board.

You unfreeze Bucky.

Bucky opens his eyes, looks around. “Is Steve okay?” he asks, panicked that you’re here and Steve isn’t and assuming the worst.

“Yes,” T’Challa says. “Sam would like to have a conversation with you. If you still wish to return to your unconscious state when you are done, that will be your choice.”

Bucky sighs and nods. He looks at you skeptically.

He steps out of the chamber, stiff from a month of being frozen, but it’s just a second before he eases into his usual supersoldier grace.

It takes you longer than that in the morning to work out the kinks in your back.

“I will leave you to it, then,” T’Challa says and walk out.

“Why are you here?” Bucky asks, quietly. His annoyed look leads you to believe that he already knows.

“Why do you sleep so much, dude? It’s been a month. That’s just verging on lazy.”

It gets a smile out of him, and he raises his middle finger at you.

“Is Steve really okay?” he asks.

“Okay as a guy can be when his best friend of 90 years sits his ass in a freezer.”

“I can’t be out there, not knowing what’s in my head. It’s not safe. You saw that with your own eyes.”

You answer, “Well, T’Challa thinks there’s no way to really work on a promising solution if you can’t participate consciously in the lab tests. And he said he told you that.”

Bucky frowns, like he thinks you’re the most exasperating person on Earth. It’s a little bit like how he looks at Steve sometimes, and you don’t even know why you’re proud.

“It’s safer for everyone this way.” He sets his jaw, stubborn as a mule, and you finally see it.

You can see that he wants to protect Steve. But you also see that he wants to protect himself. 

You think of all the times Steve has said that in those first couple years after he woke up, he wished he had been left in that ice. All those times you figured out that even now, when Steve has friends and a mission and has saved the world and has _you_ , there are still times when he thinks about how peaceful it would be to be back in that ice. You always understood, though; you know that what Steve feels is not rare among veterans, that it doesn't mean he can't heal, and that taking it as a reflection on his love for you, on the happiness you give him, is a misunderstanding of war, is a misunderstanding of pain.

You look over at Bucky and wish Steve were here. Maybe around each other, they’d admit that sometimes surviving is really fucking hard. Because you sure as hell don’t know what to say to Bucky. You know that it won’t work to tell him that you work at the VA, that you’ve seen this before, that lots of soldiers feel this way for a good long time and that he just needs to keep taking one step in front of another. (It seems like that’s what Bucky was doing in Bucharest, anyway, until old love and a new war made the wounds too fresh to bear). 

“Bucky,” you say slowly, for once sincerely hoping that he won’t get pissed off at you, that he won’t see this as condescending (as you wonder, in a brief flash, how much younger Bucky is than you). You know you have to find the right tactic here. “I’m not saying I can’t see why you’re doing this,” you continue, “But… do you really want to wake up years from now and find out Steve’s gone?” 

Bucky swallows, and you can see the fear in his eyes. A minute ago, he thought that was what had happened, and his body still carries the tension from it. You think that for Bucky, waking up to a world without Steve, to a world where he wasn’t there for Steve in his moment of need, would be the worst fate. (You know that Steve has felt the same way about waking up to a world without Bucky, and for a second you almost hate yourself for being stupid enough to think that you were more than a fling compared to the kind of love that Steve and Bucky share. But then you remember Riley, and how much you miss the hole he left ripped in your heart, how you feel that loss every day, and how that loss never makes you love Steve any less. And so you force yourself to calm down, to focus on the mission at hand.)

“Bucky, you’ve got to know Steve needs you.”

He shakes his head. “Not since… not since a long time ago.” 

You wonder when exactly he means, but you press on. “You love him. And he still loves you.” You say it definitively, almost cocky, and you think it must be obvious that you’re overcompensating so it doesn’t sound like the words still hurt a little to speak.

He notices. “Why are you here, Sam?” Bucky says, taking back control of the conversation. 

“I’m here because... you know why I’m here. I’m here to help Steve.” Suddenly, you realize that you just told a man who’s almost a hundred broken years old that he has no right to rest. That he should leave the safety of Wakanda and its frozen sleep for Steve. It’s not what you mean. But you realize how much you want to say that you’re here to save Steve and Bucky both, that their mutual self-sacrifice is making both of them miserable and you can’t stand by. 

You realize how much you want to tell Bucky that you’re here for Steve but you’re also here for him. And damned if that’s not the most ridiculous fucking thing you’ve thought in your life.

Bucky answers, “I did the right thing for Steve. I left him with you.”

He’s staring at you now, a hard gaze. He’s trying to act like he’s disappointed in you, like he gave you one simple job, to heal Steve Rogers’ broken heart, and you couldn’t do it. 

That’s a pile of steaming shit, and you’re not taking it.

You tell him, “You hid because of your guilt.” 

His face barely moves, but you see him crumple. “Fuck you, man.” His eyes go a little blank, and there’s no venom to it. 

You step closer, ignoring the part of yourself that remembers how lethal he can be. “It’s okay to feel guilty.”

“No shit,” he says, and the anger is back.

“That guilt isn’t going to get less here, Bucky. I’m sorry,” you say swallowing. And you are. “I wish it would, but that’s only going to get better by living with it.”

“And what about Steve? I watched him destroy every single part of his life to try to help me, even know what I've done. His service as a soldier and his friends - that’s what means the most to him, always has. He trashed both for me, right in front of my eyes. You know that’s true.”

You didn’t expect this. “Bucky, you’ve known Steve longer than anyone. You know that _nobody_ talks Steve out of doing what he believes is right.”

A pause, then Bucky actually snorts a laugh, a little tear finally escaping from his eye. “Fuckin’ tell me about it,” he mutters.

You laugh too, then, because if anyone understands the complete unbelievable honor it is to be fucked over again and again by Steve’s pure integrity and still be grateful for it, it’s the man in front of you.

He looks at you, then, sad but smiling, and he reaches out slowly to reach his hand onto your shoulder. “The thing is, there was one thing I couldn’t stand to let Steve give up for me.”

He looks at you a long moment before you figure out he means you. 

“It’s not like that,” you say, and you realize that you mean it.

“He should be with you, Sam,” Bucky says, looking down. 

“Because you’re not ready to be out in the world?” you ask, softly, keenly aware of his hand on you still.

He looks back up, perplexed or maybe annoyed, like you're not understanding at all. “He _belongs_ with you, Sam. You two are … exactly alike.”

You stare. For a while.

Finally you answer, and you mean to sound calm, but somehow you sound angry: “What the hell are you talking about, man?”

He looks confused. “You really don’t see it.”

“Not really.”

He gives you a little impish smile. “You’re stubborn, difficult, muleheaded.”

“Ha. Ha.”

He continues, “You’re nosy, loyal far beyond to a fault, you think it’s your job to protect everyone, you don’t know when to shut up, you think you’re funnier than you actually are.”

“I am exactly as funny as I think I am,” you object.

“You’re about a million times better at saving people than you are at killing them. Which is a choice.” With his eyes, he dares you to disagree, then he continues, “You’re both cocky. You both aren’t happy unless you’re taking on way more than you can chew. Neither of you can back down from a fight. You both pretend like you’ve got no chip on your shoulder, but you do. You would both go to the ends of the Earth for someone you love but you’re too damn afraid to say that love out loud.”

That last one stings a little.

“You had no idea, did you?” he says, peering at you like he can’t believe how naïve you are (like he thinks better of you for it). “That Steve is obviously completely… he’s gone for you, Sam. He has it bad. And you’re too much of a lunkhead to see it.” 

He claps you lightly on the back, then, tone softening. “I’m honestly impressed you and Stevie even got together at all, what with both of you being oblivious idiots. Honestly, with Peggy, she practically had to drag him into the bedroom to get him to admit he wanted to date her. Glad to see that Steve’s improved his game at least a little in the past 70 years.”

You counter, “Maybe it’s my game that’s good--”

“Doubt it,” he says, so fast that you can’t help but chuckle.

“Bucky…. I … appreciate what you’re saying. You have no idea how much, to be honest. And none of this compares to what you have in common with Steve.”

He rolls his eyes. “Forget that we’re from the same neighborhood, from the same decade. I’m talking personality. Character.”

“I am, too,” you say, and you can see this surprises him. “But nothing we’re talking about changes that Steve would be better off with you in his life. Even if you’re not sure, I’m telling you he would be. So don’t throw yourself into the freezer because you think you’re helping him. I’ve had enough of that old man self-sacrifice logic. My patience is wearing thin.”

He looks at you with such exasperation that you know, in that moment, that he’s damn fond of you.

“If you don’t want to – for your own benefit – then fine,” you continue, “But if you want to, you know, figure some things out,” you say.

He raises his eyebrow at the euphemism.

You swallow. “If you want to learn to live with yourself. For real. Then stay awake. And… come back to us.”

You can see, clearly, that the _awake_ scares him. But you see that he also hears the _us_.

After a long minute, he nods. 

You grin at him and you want to hug him, but you offer a handshake and he takes it.

\--

T’Challa, naturally, has a newly made arm that’s been waiting in a lab for Bucky to wake up. He also runs some tests so he can gather data to work on de-HYDRAing Bucky's brain while you're gone. As you and Bucky thank him for everything before you leave, T’Challa gives a cocky smile at Bucky and says, “I told you so,” to which Bucky says, “Shut up.”

You head back to the beach cabin, and you can see that Bucky tenses as you two get close. You’ve been telling yourself that you’re making the right choice, that you shouldn’t be nervous that you’ve just made a huge mistake and sabotaged your relationship with Steve. But then you see that Bucky’s nervous too, and you realize that Bucky’s not even sure he can handle the risk and the terror of being around everything that reminds him of the best and worst of himself. 

You shove him lightly on the arm to get his attention, and say, “Okay, Brooklyn, look sharp. We’re about to show Steve the two hottest guys he’s ever seen in his life.”

He knows what you’re doing, but he smiles.

You walk up to the cabin, and walk in. Steve, who has probably heard two sets of footsteps, comes out looking curious, and stops in his tracks when he sees both you and Bucky standing there.

He gapes for a minute, then looks at you. “Side job, huh?”

“Just had to pick up a friend,” you say, and you look at Bucky.

Steve’s smiling like you’re both sunshine, and Bucky doesn’t seem nervous any more, but he’s just standing there, looking a little lost. You give him a little shove, and he walks forward and kisses Steve, long and sweet and a little rougher than you’re used to seeing.

Surprisingly, you don’t feel jealous. You feel like you’ve done something right.

They look at you then, eyes dark and dirty, and you wonder how anyone on the planet could turn down these damn pain-in-the-ass Brooklyn boys.

You walk over, and Steve kisses you, tongue pressing in like he needs the taste of you to live. You part, out of breath, and you look at Bucky, wondering if the two of you will as well.

“Are you sure?” Bucky says, and you can see the worry that you might not be, you can see how badly he wants to protect you from him, how scared he is of hurting you, and if you didn’t want him before (but dammit, you did), you’d sure want him now.

You grab his collar and yank him close, and he lets you (good men with superstrength let themselves get pulled around easily when they’re not in battle). You kiss him softly then, waiting until it stops feeling strange and new, and then you lean your head to encourage him to take the lead. He does, running soft fingers along your jaw, as he presses into your mouth too. 

You look over at Steve, and he’s breathing hard just from watching you two. You wonder if you’re all about to get carried away and you wonder if you’re even ready for that, but Bucky puts his hand on the small of your back and says to Steve, “The three of us should talk.” 

\--

You live together and you don’t have sex. 

You always figured that Steve and Bucky would want a reunion (in bed), but Bucky mentions that he hasn’t been with anyone since the 1940s and you and Steve immediately know that it will be a while. For some reason, Bucky and Steve always act like it’s just assumed that when Bucky is ready, it will be the three of you. You pull Bucky aside and tell him that it’s okay if he’s more comfortable starting out with just Steve, or even if he wants to share Steve with you, noting that some relationships are vee’s and not triangles. He tells you that you shouldn’t feel pressure to be with him for Steve’s sake, and looks guilty, and you realize that you’ve both got it wrong and you actually both want the same thing. Bucky just needs more time. He’s still scared of his own body, you eventually realize, and you think you wouldn’t rush him for the world.

The three of you share a bed, and you take turns being in the middle. It’s not something you work out or plan on, but it happens that way, and it’s easy, somehow. You don’t have to talk about; nothing seems more natural than falling exhausted into bed together, so no one questions it. It’s a comfort to all of you: the warmth of strong muscles around you, comfortable breathing and steady heartbeats, fingers stroking hair, legs sprawled over hips, faces leaning against chests, hands coming to steadying rescue at nightmare, blankets kicked onto the floor on humid nights, light sighs and sleep murmuring on calmer nights. You feel better knowing that if Steve wakes up sweating and terrified, there will be two of you there for him. You can see that Steve is less worried he’ll accidentally be careless and hurt you if he wakes up unexpectedly. And Bucky has an easy affection that makes it seem natural to cuddle, whether he’s devastated by memories or playfully ballbusting or melancholy or tired or just silly. It works for all of you, and you’re so grateful for it you could burst.

Bucky goes on long walks by himself in the morning, just him and the ocean and the early air. It takes a couple weeks for him to figure out that you and Steve aren’t using that time to have morning sex without him. You and Steve actually use that time to talk about how you two can best help Bucky with his recovery, but neither of you have the guts to say that to him when he yells, “I’ve been hiking miles every morning to give you two some damn privacy, what the hell have you been doing?” You and Steve look at each other, and you realize that you’ve been on the same page without having to ask, so you tell Bucky, “We don’t mind waiting for you.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“We’re in no rush,” you’re quick to add. “We’re waiting until our incredible charm makes us irresistible to you.”

“Pfff. Charm?” Bucky says. “More like, eventually, I may get bored of hearing your constant yammer and have to do something creative to shut you up.” 

“How creative?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.

It gets a smile out of Bucky. “Seriously, guys, I don’t want you two to go without just because I’m here.”

You look at Steve and you agree. Steve says, “We aren’t going without anything we need. Like Sam said, there’s no rush.”

Bucky rolls his eyes like he thinks you’re both morons, but he kisses you both on the forehead and says that he wants French Toast for breakfast, so he can’t be that upset. You and Bucky work on the French Toast together, assigning Steve to cut strawberries since neither of you trust him near the stove.

\--

The three of you start to go on missions. Bucky isn’t sure if he should go, but Steve promises to stop him by any means necessary if he goes Winter Soldier. While they all know he doesn’t mean _any_ , he also tells Bucky. “We could really use your help, buddy,” and you see clearly that Bucky is much, much worse at saying no to Steve than you are. You didn’t think that was possible, but there it is.

At first, it’s helping friends out when things come up. Sometimes you get a lead on remnants of HYDRA and you all want to pursue it. Eventually, you all just admit that none of you are built for early retirement and you all pretty much need to have a mission. Of course, you and Bucky claim up and down that it’s Steve who can’t stay out of a fight and you’re just reluctantly going along, but even though Steve surely sees through that, he indulges the conceit. 

After that, you take turns choosing missions. The three of you set some rules for making the choice, avoid things that will get you caught by Ross or others, try not to overstep your own knowledge of geopolitics. The first mission you pick is after you hear word that soldiers have been captured behind enemy lines. Steve’s first choice is messing up the arms trade on a multinational coastline, since, well, he doesn’t do anything small. Bucky’s first choice is protecting an orphanage that gets used as a child labor source by local criminals. 

You learn to travel well together. Sometimes, Bucky is still annoying as hell, and you’re still annoying as hell to him, but Steve never feels the need to play referee, so it must not be all that bad.

\--

The first time the three of you are together, it’s while stowing away in a cross-Pacific ship. The space is tight and the hours are long and boring, and Bucky starts kissing you both, but then he doesn’t stop, and when you and Steve ask questions about if he’s really ready, Bucky is very impatient about it. He convinces you, and soon it’s happening. It’s been a while, and you’re all eager, but you all try hard to take it slow, quick checks and looks to ask what’s okay, what you like, how you like it. 

You almost lose your mind as you kiss Bucky while Steve licks your cock up and down, teasing like the bastard he is. Bucky sees the exasperation in your eyes and then he whispers in your ear, and soon the two of you are playing with Steve’s body like its your shared toy, and the noises Steve makes are _delicious_. Eventually, you get behind Bucky and Steve gets in front of him, and the three of you move together, smooth and soft at first, but then building, carefully, stupidly good, until you’re all hurtling like men lost at sea in a storm, holding on with everything you have. When you’re done and you’re lying there in the moment of daze before Steve helps you all clean up, you notice that Bucky has held onto Steve so tightly that his hips are bruised. You smile at it, knowing that it will heal soon enough, and you notice that even amid the chaos of desperate needful heat, they were both so careful to not leave a single bruise on you, that it felt like anarchy to you, like you had no control, but to them, it was perfectly controlled because they always know exactly what they’re doing with their bodies. You should feel left out or weak or envious maybe, but you mostly just feel pleased with yourself that you found a couple supersoldiers who really know what they’re doing in bed.

\--

Between missions, you go back to that beach, when you can, to recuperate. You let one another have some space, and while Bucky still takes him morning walks alone, he does it after morning sex. 

You make love on the beach at night and in bed in the morning. Supersoldiers never tire out, apparently. It would be a problem if it weren’t so… fun.

You get a safer Internet connection, and Bucky discovers food blogs and soon you’re trying new recipes all the time. You bookmark a couple of good online therapy sources but you don’t push him to find them or check if he’s visited the sites; you trust him and you understand his boundaries. You do, however, use youtube and Pandora to tutor Steve and Bucky in all the eras of music and movies that they’ve missed. Online, Steve reads about art and history and sometimes participates in message boards for a tiny but vocal group that speculates on the chances that the Dodgers will return to Brooklyn. 

Sometimes you all talk about serious things. Often, you all make fun of one another as viciously as you can while still keeping it friendly. It gets competitive and you laugh every day, harder than you have in a very long time. 

You make sure Bucky and Steve have some time on their own. Bucky does the same for you and Steve, and you’re grateful for that too. You and Bucky get some time to yourself too – at first, it’s talking about Steve or getting to know each other, but eventually it’s easy. Sometimes he tells you things you can’t believe he trusts you with, and you feel honored. Sometimes, he likes to cook with you and sometimes he quibbles over which produce to choose at the farmer’s market. Sometimes, Bucky makes you explain viral videos that he doesn’t understand, and you have a 51% accuracy rate of figuring out when he’s genuinely confused by the video and when he’s just fucking with you.

Sometimes, the three of you sit on the beach, staring out into the water. Sometimes you cuddle, sometimes you have a picnic or bring books to read, and sometimes you just sit and look. Age and pain and love and rage and guilt and morality and lust are all serious things, but none of them do a thing to make the ocean less vast, to make the whorls of white on dark blue waves any less hypnotic.

Sometimes, you catch Steve smiling at you both like he can’t believe how lucky he is. 

Sometimes, you catch Bucky looking at you and Steve like you two are the most adorable thing he’s ever seen. 

Sometimes, they catch you looking at them like you finally know what home is. 

Being assholes, they pretend to think you just look like you really want to get laid.

But to be honest, that works out well for you, too. 

(Until you’re so tired that you’re literally falling asleep in the middle of your brilliant comeback to one of their sarcastic comments. Damn supersoldier stamina.)


End file.
